


Brighter than Sunshine ~ Volume 1, Chapter 11 "Metropolis Anti-Vigilante Ordinance"

by Cassie_Sandsmark, Somuchbraver



Series: Brighter Than Sunshine Volume 1 [11]
Category: DCU
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, DC AU - Freeform, DC Cinematic Universe - Freeform, F/F, Femslash, Metropolis, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6567415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassie_Sandsmark/pseuds/Cassie_Sandsmark, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somuchbraver/pseuds/Somuchbraver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Metropolis could only be without Superman for so long until plays were made, and Lexcorp opens with a big one, manipulating the city into some very official moves against Wonder Girl, and calling Cassie's credibility into question. After Cassie's first two fights in the city involve damage and death, Metropolis starts to wonder, do they really want their city in the hands of a super powered teenage girl? Good thing one ally in particular is waiting in the wings, because the girls might be in sore need of some "actual grownup" assistance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brighter than Sunshine ~ Volume 1, Chapter 11 "Metropolis Anti-Vigilante Ordinance"

**Author's Note:**

> This story is about a romantic relationship between Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) and Rule 63'd (female) version of 'Superboy.' We've omitted the majority of the Superfamily from our universe to make this work and put this story 10 years after the events in Man of Steel. 'Superman' has been active for at least that long, and Cassie herself (as Wonder Girl) has been active for a little over 3 years, since she was 15.
> 
> Follow Our Tumblr at (http://brighterthnsunshine.tumblr.com/) for fan-art, photo manips, information related to our story as it progresses, and more!
> 
> Mission Statement: Lady superheroes need to make out more.
> 
> Your comments and/or kudos are oxygen to us!

## Brighter than Sunshine ~ Volume 1, Chapter 11 "Metropolis Anti-Vigilante Ordinance"

[Brighter than Sunshine Tumblr](http://brighterthnsunshine.tumblr.com)

Sam slept soundly through the night, locked in Cassie's hold and curled up against her chest. She woke to a banging on the door that drove the sound directly through her head, rattling in her often sensitive ears. She pushed herself up on one hand and shot the door a dirty look, rubbing her head where her dark hair that had begun to curl up naturally against the pillow. Cassie came awake a few seconds after Samantha, less alarmed by the persistent banging on the door than by the sudden absence of soft warm pressing against her body under the sheets. Opening her eyes, she failed to notice the noise at the door for a moment, and blinking slowly, focused her eyes on the girl sitting upright on her bed. "...hey," she winced, "s'morning already?"

Samantha turned the sound of banging down, her face loosening with visible relief as she did. She then dropped back on the bed, throwing an arm over her eyes. "You have company. Think your neighbors are mad about last night's noise?"

"Company?" Cassandra finally recognized the noise coming from the door, and then scrunched her face up as she tried to determine, through sleep addled thoughts, who might be responsible for making such a loud noise. "...don't you think they would have bothered us about last night?"

Read more...

'Cassie? Cassie open the door! It's Donna! ... C'mon Cassie, I know you're in there, open the damn door, we gotta talk!'

Samantha began to answer but got cut off. "erm... nope." She pulled the duffle she'd brought with her off the floor and did a sort of super-speed roll into sleep shorts and a tank top, stripping the bedspread off the bed with her in her haste.

Cassie was still staring blank-eyed at the door to her room when Samantha tugged the sheets out from under her, tumbling onto the floor and rolling onto her back, blinking up at the other girl in surprise and confusion. "...um...what are you doing?" Donna continued knocking and calling at the door intermittently.

Samantha raised an impassive eyebrow at the destruction she'd caused. "...Did you want me to flash your kinda-sister? I'm not shy, you just said something last night about not sharing, so..."

Cassie started giggling up at the dark-haired girl from her position on the floor. "...no, no, I'm all for keeping naked, sexily entwined us from the prying eyes of others, you're..." she made a thumbs up sign at Sammi, smiling wryly, "but you knocked me on the floor!" She laughed. "You're just a little weird, sweetie, did you know that?"

Sam pulled a little face when Cassie pointed out that she'd knocked her on the floor, running her fingers through her hair. "It got caught up in..." she pointed to the end of the bed where she'd super-changed and did a little swirly motion with her pointer finger. She gave up, shrugging as Cassie got dressed.

Donna started yelling again, so after rolling her eyes the blonde girl rolled onto her front and kicked the door behind her with the bottom of her bare foot. "I HEARD YOU THE TENTH TIME, DONNA! HOLD ON!" Then climbing up onto her feet, she grinned and kissed Sammi's cheek, then padded over to her dresser and pulled out some satin panties and a sports bra, a pair of yoga pants and a big, stretched t-shirt with a worn-out old Wonder Woman symbol on it that hung off of the left shoulder when she put it on, and shrugging into all of the clothes she hopped over to the door as she pulled the pants up, and then opened it with a flourish. "Good MORNING, Donna! How unexpectedly PLEASANT it is to see you so bright and early in the morning!"

On the other side of the door, the 6'1" dark-haired Amazon was leaning against the door frame, arms folded over her chest in mock irritation. Dressed in a pair of designer jeans and a fashionable peasant blouse, the sun-glasses wearing super-chick looked like a supermodel playing hookie from a photoshoot, and yet there wasn't an ounce of make-up on her. Her perfectly beautiful hair lay elegantly down over her shoulders as if it had been set by master stylists, and yet Donna just tossed her head to one side as if it would naturally bounce back to its perfect framing - which it did. Pulling her sunglasses down a tick on her nose, the dark-haired chick looked Cassie up and down, and then past Cassie to the even darker-haired girl standing behind her in the room. "...Hello there," she chirped, smiling brightly and ignoring her younger sister for a moment to step around the blonde girl, into the room, and hold out her hand for Samantha to shake. "We haven't officially met, although I remember running into you a little over a week ago: Donna."

Donna's appearance at the door was a little more intimidating than Sam remembered which was interesting because she remembered her as pretty intimidating. She wondered how rumpled she looked as she smiled easily and extended her hand. "Samantha. Nice to officially meet you."

"I'm sure it is, and not at all intimidating," Donna's eyes twinkled with amusement. Then the amazon glanced around the room and took in the pizza boxes, melting ice cream (which had turned into milky chocolate soup in the bucket by now, strawberries, and the discarded clothing strewn everywhere. "...wow, you girls must have had quite the evening."

Samantha raised an eyebrow in Donna's direction and glanced at the disarray of the room, first noticing the slumber-party looking leftovers all over, but there were a pair of lacy panties draped over one of the lamp shades, so there was no inventing a smoke screen for what had gone on. She smirked and gave a little shrug. "It went well."

Donna smiled at the unruffled way in which Samantha responded to her provocative ribbing, and grinned at her, saying "...oh, I bet it did. I saw that not-so-little kiss at the game, yesterday. That was all over Twitter last night- hashtag 'BleachersRomance'" her expression softened a bit after that, though. ".. Though I don't think anyone could make out your face, in case you were worried."

Sam's eyes flared a little wider at the news that they were likely trending on twitter, realizing once again that she really shouldn't have gone with the quick-like-a-Band-Aid approach to coming out on campus. "Believe it or not, it didn't occur to me that that was a pretty flashy way to make that announcement."

Donna's grin widened again, like a Chesire Cat's. "I really, truly believe you on that. It certainly got my attention." Donna glanced around the room again, and then chose the only uncluttered space in the room- Cassie's computer chair- to plonk herself down in, folding her legs one over the other smoothly as she did so. "When I recognized my 'little sister' in the photo, I thought I would come by and take her out to a surprise breakfast, get some juicy details out of her." Donna grinned wickedly at Cassie, whose eyebrows went way up at that. Then she glanced back at Samantha, and continued, "I'm glad I got here before you could make your way to class, or whatever college kids do at school these days- from the way Cassie talks, it sounds like she never goes to cla--" Suddenly, Donna's head tilted to the side and her eyes narrowed dangerously as she spotted something on the floor behind the bed. Arching an imperious eyebrow, she pointed commandingly across the room and shrieked "IS THAT THE DRESS I TOLD YOU TO WEAR ON YOUR 'DATE,' CASSANDRA? What did you DO to that beautiful piece of clothing?"

Samantha knew it was not the appropriate reaction and if she'd been able to stop it she definitely would have, but she laughed, shooting Cassie a glance. Cassie sighed and rolled her eyes, shooting Samantha a wry smile as she did so. "Well, to be fair, it was in the heat of the moment, and... well, I didn't do it, she did..." She grinned, blushed, and bit her lower lip. "...after I told her to..."

Sam chuckled and shook her head. "Some hero, turning me in at the first sign of trouble."

Donna glared from one of the girls to the other, and then turned back to Cassie, shaking her head and huffing out a breath. "If you'll excuse us, uh, Samantha, was it?" She smiled back at Sammi for a moment before fixing Cassie with another glare, "apparently I have to take my little sister shopping today too, since she keeps ruining the outfits that I approve of. I'll have her back in a few hours, if you need her."

Cassie glared back at Donna when her 'big sister' asked Sammi to take off. She was opening her mouth to invite her new girlfriend along for breakfast and the rest of the morning's activities when Samantha walked up to her and kissed her on the mouth, a sweet and surprisingly intimate kiss (given that they were with company) that drew a delighted whisper of a moan from Cassie and a flutter of happiness down in her belly, her lips and mouth falling forward an inch or so after Samantha withdrew, as if unwilling to let the kiss end where it did. Watching Samantha walk towards the door, the blonde girl coughed, clearing her throat, and blinked her eyes as she refocused. "...um...hey, -ba--honey?" She winced, not sure how to interact with Samantha around other people who knew they were a couple yet, and fumbling a bit, "--where're---what're you --ummm," Cassie blushed, shrugging her shoulders, "...do you have plans today?"

Samantha smiled, delighted that the kiss made such an impact and watched quietly with an arched eyebrow as she fumbled. "I've been neglecting my work. I'll head off to class and then I've gotta lock myself up in a dorm room without lips," she smirked, "and put my nose to the grindstone for a night."

"Okie," Cassie nodded, signaling understanding. "That sounds like a not-dumb plan." She smiled brightly and twirled her fingers in a slight wave. "Have fun? Rest in peace? Work well!"

Sam grinned. "I'll text you," she assured, and nodded at Donna before padding out into the hallway in bare feet and wandering down the hall toward the floor's community bathroom.

Cassie watched after Samantha as she wandered off, following her to the door and smiling softly down the hallway after her for a moment before she turned around and began to close the door, grinning at Donna. "That's my girlfriend," she said proudly, and shut the door.

Samantha had brought supplies to at least get her ready for the walk back to her dorm, which was fortunate because she had abandoned all her clothing from the day before, including her heels, in Cassie's room. She changed and got class-ready, swung by her dorm to pick up books, and then attended Chemistry and Philosophy. The Chemistry was challenging but interesting, as she'd been promised, though her foundational knowledge in Biology was totally useless and if she'd known she would be dating seriously she might have opted for Bio. Philosophy was wonderful, until she got to class. All the reading was stuff she was already familiar with, so she breezed through that, but when it came to discussing the reading in class, she was surprised by the approach. Her fellow students wanted to talk ideas and theory, not possible application. Application had been the majority of her training in the subject, like one might if they were preparing to be a head of state, or even a general. She wondered why her classmates weren't studying theology if all they wanted to talk about was ideas. It was also the classroom in which she was most likely to be rarely called on. She felt deflated after class, her Monday-Wednesdays were like that, but encouraged by being assigned new reading. When she got back to her room, she dove head-first into her calc homework until she broke through an intellectual wall. She was starting to tally up what she'd missed on Monday and the work she should have started the last two days and realizing she was in a lot deeper than she'd thought. She picked up her phone and texted Cassie: 

Meanwhile, Cassandra spent the first part of the day in the company of her sister. After convincing her to skip the showers, Donna claimed the blonde girl's cellphone (so that she wouldn't have to fight over her attentions during the day) and then took her 'younger sister' out for breakfast at McDonald's, and then surprised her by taking her to an all-women's spa, salon and fitness center to enjoy a sauna, a brisk swim in a cool lap pool, and a soak in a hot tub, followed by an oil massage, a mani-pedi, a full-body and Brazilian wax (her first, a new and altogether strange experience), and ending with a wash, style, and makeover. Throughout, the younger Amazonian princess quizzed Cassie on her relationship with Samantha, eager to learn everything she could about her new paramour: who she was (Cassie skirted the potential complications of Samantha's last name and went into her well-off, Metropolis-upper-crust background, instead), what she was taking at school, what her non-academic interests were, how the sex was between them (Cassie exclaimed the awesomeness of having sex and making love with her new girlfriend until Donna rolled her eyes and dunked her under in the hot tub to get her to shut up about it), what the girl was really like (Cassie gushed again), and how things were between them (at which point the blonde girl became unusually quiet and reserved, a small smile playing across her lips as she simply said that things between her and Samantha were 'really, really wonderful.')

After the extended spa, salon, and makeover session, the thoroughly primped and prettied girls grabbed a quick lunch at a small Mediterranean place in the Greek section of downtown, then hopped over to 7th Avenue and Luthor, an upscale section of the downtown neighborhood that was lined with expensive boutiques and other upscale shoppes and stores for the richy-rich of Metropolis and the various international business people and delegates who visited the city as part of their official duties. Cassie, who could never have afforded to shop on her own given the modest stipend she lived off of and the meager means of her family, balked at the prices she was seeing all around her, but Donna, who was (in addition to a super-heroine) a part time international fashion star and supermodel, charged everything to her various expense accounts. For the better part of the afternoon, then, Donna shoved her little sister into a variety of pretty, sophisticated, sexy, and classy outfits - dresses, skirts, blazers, blouses, tops, slacks, tights, etc. By and large, the blonde girl (who had long since learned that simply acquiescing to her 'big sister's whims in this regard was by a wide margin the path of least resistance) accepted the bulk of Donna's final recommendations, ending the day with a variety of new dresses, skirts, and sexy-to-classy outfits and dressy shoes that she'd purchased with the not-so-subtle aim of wowing her new, extremely up-scale girlfriend.

While they shopped, the two girls continued catching up on each other's respective lives, but the topic inevitably tended back in the direction of Cassie's new relationship. A series of increasingly ribald questions from her older sister with regards to certain aspects of Cassie's new sex life eventually led to the blonde girl throwing a pair of jeans in her face, Cassie finally confessed that Samantha had seen her use her abilities on the night of their first 'date,' and that she'd later told her everything about her past, origin, and secret identity. The two girls parted company shortly after 5 p.m. After returning Cassie's cellphone, Donna gave the younger and smaller girl a tight squeeze and demanded that she keep her posted on developments in her life so that she didn't have to make these special trips to Metropolis every week, but Cassie shot back by asking that if she did as Donna was asking, who would buy her pretty new clothes for the ones she ruined in her professional and private lives. When Donna had run off (leaping into the sky once under the cover of the shadows in a dark alley way a few blocks from the center of Midtown) Cassie, with bags in hand, slung over her shoulder, and piled on the ground around her, tried to work out how she was going to get back to campus with all the new swag Donna had heaped upon her, and finally resolved to call a cab. But after pulling out her phone and seeing that she had a message from Sammi that was a few hours old already, the blonde girl grinned, quickly coming up with a new plan.

Once the cab she contacted reached her residence hall on campus, Cassie raced up the stairs of her dorm hall a couple times to drop off her purchases, then quickly changed out of her yoga pants and shirt and into a pair of her new, designer stretch jeans (black), a black t-shirt with a Taylor-Swift logo stenciled onto it, a pair of black, ruffled faux-leather knee high boots with a two inch heel. She bounded down the stairs and across the campus as quickly as she could without spilling the extra purchase she'd made on her way back to campus: a large bowl of the soup of the day from the bistro Samantha had taken her to on both their first and second dates (Roasted Tomato Bisque with Melted Cheddar), a loaf of french bread, a covered fruit dish of strawberries, grapes, and pear slices, and a single red rose. Sneaking into Samantha's residence hall by slipping through the door with a group of young coeds, Cassie ignored their pointed questions about where the fancy food and flower were from and dashed up the stairs and down the hall to Samantha's room (having to check her bearings twice after she remembered that she'd never come to her new girlfriend's room by way of the stairs before). Then, once she reached the right door, she paused, set the food on a small plastic tray that she'd brought along for this very purpose, laid the tray in front of the door, and then arranged the rose very carefully on top of the tray, over the food. Straightening up, she turned and started bouncing down the hall again, grinning and pulling out her cellphone to respond to the three-hours old text: Bouncing down the stairs, Cassie burst out the door of the residence hall and raced out across the quad, giggling and grinning the whole way back to her room.

Samantha was locked up in her room with a pile of homework and studying to be done. Once she'd figured out that week's calculus, she felt energized enough to dive into chemistry and was rebuked by her total lack of understanding for the fundamentals of the lab she'd missed. She was banging her head against the text book trying to figure out what had gone on in her absence when the text from Cassie came in. She smirked and raised her eyebrow at the message, all too happy to jump off the bed and open the door to her room. She grinned and looked around when she spotted the food laying in front of it, listening for her and hearing her giggling as she burst out the front door to her dorm building three floors down. She smirked and brought the food back inside of her room, pausing before opening it up to text, Samantha set the rose across her pillow before opening up the food and eating as she puzzled over her chem.

Cassie, on her way up the stairs to her own dorm room, grinned again when she read the return text from Samantha and sent back a simple before she let herself into her bedroom. Flipping on the lights in the gathering darkness of the late afternoon, Cassie smirked at the mess of discarded clothing, half-eaten pizza, and chocolate ice cream that were strewn across her bedroom, and the pile of sheets that Samantha had pulled off the bed. After about ten minutes of cleaning up, Cassie dumped her bed sheets in the laundry room downstairs and stretched new sheets over her bed before dropping into it. Burying her face in the pillow Samantha had slept on the night before, Cassie smiled at the scent her new girlfriend had left behind and then rolled onto her side, one eye open and facing the tv as she flipped it on with her bedside remote. Planning to catch up via Amazon Prime on the shows she'd missed this week, Cass was already reaching for the power-on button on her remote when the station she was on - WGBS - returned suddenly from the commercial break it had been on when she turned it on to the 6pm Evening News report - and a picture of her own face. "And now for our top story this evening," the WGBS female newscaster, the 40-something brunette corporate talking Sally Newsome, was pronouncing, "Teenage Vigilantism in Metropolis. First Anomaly, now 'Killer Frost': the exploits of the new, blonde, teen 'superhero'--" the way the newscaster pounced the words, as if they were surrounded by air quotes, made the blonde girl on the bed frown, and she sat up slowly, staring suspiciously at the screen as the anchor rambled on, "--claiming to be 'Wonder Girl', and the unfounded - one might say slanderous - public allegations that this little girl reportedly made against top Lexcorp officials. For more on this story, we bring you our top field reporter, Kat Grant."

Julie lived in the room four doors down and across the hall, and it took her no time at all to cross that space and burst through Cassie's front door. "YOU'RE ON TV, oh my go-" She slapped a hand over her mouth when she realized how rude busting in was, walked backward through the doorway and knocked on the open door. "The new is- you can FLY? What is GOING ON?"

Cassie was just beginning to detect the subtle notes of bias in the anchor's tone when her door burst open and Julie flew inside. Vaulting off of the bed, Cassie crossed the distance to her bedroom door in an instant and, clapping a hand carefully over her friend's mouth, she glanced up and down the hallway to make sure no one else had heard what the other girl had said, and then pulled her inside of her room and closed the door behind her. "Shit, shit, shit," she muttered under her breath as she pulled Julie towards the bed. "How'd you know that was me?"

Behind Cassie, the televised switch from anchor to field reporter had taken a few seconds longer than expected due to some kind of technical difficulty, but suddenly a blonde woman, not more than ten years older than Cassandra, was on the screen, standing in front of the scene of destruction in Midtown where Cassie had faced off with Killer Frost just a day ago. "Sally, I'm currently standing in the heart of Midtown, just a few blocks down the street from Lexcorp tower, the Daily Planet, and the WGBS building, among others. It was here, yesterday, amidst the wreck and ruin you see all around me that a young teenage blonde girl claiming to be 'Wonder Girl' appears to have had a knock-down-drag out fight with a previously unknown metahuman who identified herself as 'Killer Frost.' According to eyewitness reports, the battle raged up and down the street for several blocks, and in the course of the fight several MMCPD police officers and a number of bystanders lost their lives." The camera suddenly flashed to a line of body bags and a few shots of people whose ice-shard 'pieces' were being respectfully carried off of the streets and sidewalks and loaded into a police van. "Although the so-called 'Wonder Girl' appears to have spared no attention or concern for the innocents caught in the line of fire during this metahuman slug-fest, independent reports of several dozen bystanders have described a local Metropolis citizen, an unidentified young woman with black hair and blue eyes, who darted in and out of several frozen storefronts to rescue people put at risk by this out-of-control super powered grudge match." Stunned, Cassie dropped onto the edge of her bed and gaped open-mouthed at the screen, pulling Julie down next to her. "...holy shit, what a stupendous bitch."

Julie tried to answer Cassie through her hand but could not be understood through the other girl's fingers. Once she had her mouth back, she was significantly calmer but had switched from yelling to whispering very loudly. "You're a superhero?? I recognized your face, I mean- it's not a perfect picture but it's definitely you. You were there during the ice disaster downtown?? Is that why you were nowhere to be found all day? Were you even on a date?"

Cassie glanced back and forth between Julie and the screen, feeling a combination of flustered, annoyed ... and slightly sick. "The date was... later, last night, and...well, yeah... I was there," she said quietly, her eyes drooping slightly. "I'm..." she shrugged, suddenly feeling less proud of herself than she ever had before, "...I'm Wonder Girl." Her lips twisted into a bit of a frown. "...and that usually sounds a lot cooler when I say it out loud."

Meanwhile, on the screen, the anchor and the field reporter began to trade questions and answers regarding the Killer Frost incident. Estimates of property damage were run up on the screen, and then with a reference to Cassie's earlier fight with Anomaly a week before, the anchor made it sound as though the city ought to be holding her personally accountable for over a million dollars of damage to city property on account of her reckless activities. Meanwhile, both women continued to heap praise not only the 'anonymous black-haired, blue-eyed girl,' but upon the officers of the MMCPD unit, whose 'quick response,' Kat said, 'prevented the situation from any further out of hand.'

"Oh that's just bullshit!" The blonde girl on the bed shouted at the screen, throwing a bunched up sock at it (hard enough, despite the softness of the fabric, for the screen to rock slightly). Then glancing pleadingly at Julie, Cassie threw her arms wide open, trying to explain her side of the story. "When I got there half the cops were already dead! She was shouting about wanting to kill Lex Luthor and she was about five more dead police officers away from getting to Lexcorp Tower! If I hadn't stopped her, she could have slaughtered half of Midtown!"

Julie was trying desperately to catch up with all this because her brain was stuck like a broken record on the realization that her sweet dorky friend was not just a superhero but a pretty major superhero. "W-well I'm sure it's not your fault. You wouldn't just- smash things needlessly," she offered, not sure how to be supportive in this situation. "M-maybe they got bad eye-witness accounts. A lot of people died, maybe there wasn't anyone left to ask?" Her eyes swam a little, trying to clamp down on her randomly spiking panic because her new friend was a metahuman and she'd been pretty sure she'd never even seen one in person before.

Cassie sighed, deflated, and collapsed back against the bed, turning her head so that she was just looking at Julie for a moment. After that moment passed, Cassie reached over and grabbed at the remote, switching the TV off and then sat up again on the bed, pulling her knees into her chest and leaning forward over her kneecaps, wrapping her arms around her legs as she rested one side of her face on her knees and smiled weakly at the other girl. "...we gonna be cool with this?" She asked, eyes wide round and hopeful. "You can ask me whatever you want."

Julie seemed really relieved that the subject at hand had turned to the knowledge she'd just acquired about her friend. "I just- I thought everyone who was a superhero was also like rich or famous or a spy for a secret government agency. I would have never ever ever thought..." she trailed off, because that train of thought didn't seem really relevant or interesting to anyone but her. "I won't tell anybody- oh my god, does your girlfriend know?? I feel like if she doesn't know she definitely is gonna figure it out. Is your name really Cassie? I thought Wonder Girl had black hair."

The blonde girl on the bed smiled a little bit more brightly as Julie rambled on, still resting her head on her kneecaps though as she began to nod and answer. "uh..." she tried to filter through the rambling series of questions, but some of them were so fragmentary that she wasn't really sure what they were getting at. "...okay, first off: My name's really Cassie. Well, Cassandra," she rolled her eyes. "My dad insists on calling me Cassandra, but most everyone else calls me Cass or Cassie. Ummm... hair..." she nodded gently towards a locked box at the foot of her dresser, and, reaching into her pants pocket, she drew out her keys and tossed them gently towards Julie. "I used to wear a wig to keep my identity secret- it's in the box," she explained, "but... you remember the day that I was supposed to have my first date with Samantha?"

Julie nodded a little blankly at the answers Cassie was providing, feeling like her confusion was intensified by adding more information. "So... was that other girl they keep talking about another Wonder Girl? Are there a bunch of Wonder Girls from like- Wonder Woman's country?" Her eyebrows shot up high. "Are you an Amazon???" she whispered, loudly.

Cassie chuckled, charmed by Julie's excitement and feeling her spirits somewhat buoyed by her friend's eagerness to learn and know. Smiling, she started ticking off answers on the perfectly manicured fingers of one hand. "Not an Amazon, sadly. Demigoddess. My father met my mother while she was on a dig in Greece in her twenties." She ticked the second figure. "There was an earlier Wonder Girl who came from Themyscira, Wonder Woman's identical, slightly younger -- magic is confusing sometimes -- sister, Donna. You've met her." She grinned, knowing that would bowl Julie over. Donna had that impression on everyone. "She calls herself Troia now. When I became Wonder Girl, I sort of modeled my look after her old one, and lots of people get us confused. Or..." she shrugged and glanced at the TV, "Used to."

Julie's face went through around twenty emotions in the space of the conversation, mostly though she was alarmed and amazed. She couldn't believe this had all been going on completely without her noticing. She hadn't even ever felt like anything was up. "Donna??" She reeled. She HAD met a metahuman, and now she knew she'd met two of them. She thought about it for a minute. "That is- that actually...kind of figures. Wow, being an Amazon actually- explains- Donna."

Cassie continued- ticking off a third finger. "That night, on my first date with Sammi, I was on my way to meet her, like, across the street from her, really, when this big ass bruiser burst out of a bank and started tearing up the street. I didn't have time to go back for my wig, so I just threw down with him there, and got him off the street and to somewhere remote as soon as I could. Sammi saw. She knows everything." She smiled, fondly remembering the night that followed. Then ticked off a fourth and final finger. "The black haired, blue eyed girl who was helping bystanders while I kicked Frost's sub-zero ass? That was her.”

Julie gave an embarrassed little smile. "Wait- you took her along to fight monsters?? Like a date??"

Cassie giggled, smiling and rolling her eyes. "Well.. yeah, kinda, I guess like a date. I mean, I fought the monsters." She shook her head insistently. "No way I'm letting my untrained, uh," she bit her tongue, "unpowered girlfriend fight a super villain. But she helped people get out of danger while I fought. It worked out really well, actually."

Julie smiled. "That's really cool. You can't really have a sidekick though, can you, because you're like already a sidekick? Is that how it works? Do people double-up?" Her smile turned into a frown and she glanced at the TV, even though it was off. "They weren't making it sound that way. Kat Grant is like a total bitch, though. They only let her do stories when someone is being dragged because she's so acidy."

Cassie shrugged, her smile slipping slightly when the news report came up again. "...well, actually, I'm not really a sidekick anymore. I kinda... fired myself. Quit." She shrugged. "Diana wanted me to hang up my lasso so that I could focus on schooling, so I... just kinda left.”

Julie gave a little smirk. "Well, maybe it's a little early in the relationship for you to make her your sidekick." Her eyebrows shot up again. "It's a good thing no one recognized her either because that would make it super easy to figure out who you are. She's in the society pages sometimes, you know. I googled her."

"Really?" Cassie's eyebrows shot up. "Society pages? What for? When? Why?"

Julie shrugged blandly. "Since her mom is a big deal at Luthorcorp. There's a bunch of pictures of her on the internet in formal dresses at events and stuff. They made a big deal when her and her friends did a half-marathon for charity like a year or two ago? It's really bizarre, she doesn't even sweat." She shook her head and fought an eye roll. "...like she was born prom queen or something."

Cassie smiled, shifting her face slightly on her knees while her eyes sparkled affectionately. "Yeah, she's kinda magical like that. Not like, real magic magical, just... just her. She's kinda perfect."

Julie chuckled and shook her head. "Will you kick me out if I say it kinda makes me want to chuck her in a dumpster?"

Cassie grinned and shook her head. "Nope. Before I started dating her, I thought she was pretty intimidating. And, hey, I know Amazons. But..." she sighed. "Since I started getting to really know her, it's like everything's... different now."

Julie raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? In that she has all sorts of secret personal flaws or as in you're totally into her now and incapable of being objective?" She prodded, and smirked, folding her arms over her chest.

The blonde girl shrugged, still smiling. "I mean, it's not like I don't remember how intimidating she was when I met her, and I'm really glad I never... stole her boyfriend or insulted her lineage or something, because I imagine she gets kinda terrifying around people she doesn't like," she winced, "but..." she tried to think about how to explain it to her red-headed friend. "...when she smiles at me now, or touches me, or tells me how comfortable and happy she is with me, or when she... flutters after I tell her how wonderful she is, -she makes me feel like my heart is going to explode."

Julie smiled and nodded knowingly. "Well, I'll continue to remember not to piss her off. And take your word for it that she's just adorable in private." She grinned. "I still think it's unjust that she can run a half-marathon and not look like it."

Cassie grinned, resting her chin on her knee. "You should see the kind of stamina she has in bed," she teased, winking.

Julie laughed. "Of course that's perfect too. You know we have heard about it already. Maybe your bed is too close to the door."

Cassie blushed, grinning and ducking her head into her knees. "Oh god, really? You can hear us? Are we really really bad? Why hasn't anyone said something yet?"

Julie chuckled. "Nobody wants to tell the gay girls on the floor to keep it down! You guys have like lesbian immunity. It's not like it's a chorus of screaming or anything."

Cassie giggled against her knees. "That's true. There's a lot more cuddling, kissing, and 'sweet nothings'ing than actual screaming, I guess." She turned her head and smiled at her friend, thoughtfully. "Do you have questions about that?"

Her straight friend's eyes went wide and she put a hand to her lips. "I'm not sure that's my business. Like just because I have no idea what two girls do in bed together doesn't mean you've got to..." She blushed.

The blonde girl laughed. "That didn't stop my 'sister,'" she chuckled. "Donna ambushed me this morning and took me out for... well, everything."

Julie cocked her head. "Huh. I assumed that all Amazons liked women," she observed. She paused as if holding back for an extended moment. "...what do you guys do?"

Cassie grinned again, shaking her head at the first comment. "The Amazons are as much people as the rest of us. Some of them like only men, some of them only like women, but most of them have been around long enough to learn what the rest of us are just figuring out: sexuality is much more fluid than many of us want to admit." She laid back on the bed, crossing one leg over the other at the knee. "...Sammi and I are still new at this relationship with a girl thing, so we're still... I guess figuring it out. But, like..." she blinked at Julie. "You masturbate, right?"

Julie smirked and nodded, leaving the fluid sexuality comment where it lay. Julie was 110% sure she was hetero as they come and had never considered anything else for a minute. "Well, yeah."

Cassie grinned and shrugged. "Well, it's a lot better with another girl on the end, believe me. And you can penetrate a girl with more than just a penis, as I'm sure you know. We're currently on fingers and tongues, but we're working on..." she blushed. "Well, other things. Toys. Fun stuff... and then there's just oral, which is," her eyelashes fluttered and she blushed, "just lovely, and boobs are fantastic, and there's something sexy about soft, smooth skin... a girl's hair...”

Julie smirked and shook her head. "I dunno, I find fingering totally boring, really. And girls have like these tiny little petite fingers. I'm like imagining a working with an itty bitty dick."

"Mmmmm..." Cassie shook her head back, and then lifted her whole hand, forming it into a blade with fingers lined side by side. "...significantly bigger than a dick," she murmured. "And a dick can’t stroke you, or explore you, or do this..." she twirled her fingers around and blushed. “…she likes that a lot."

Julie's eyes went really wide. "Seriously?" Her brow wrinkled. "There's room for all that? She blushed and clasped her hands. "Wow. I kinda thought it was just- rubbing." She ducked her head. "I guess that sounds kind of bizarre."

Cassie shook her head, grinning. "Nahhh... that's what I used to think before my first girlfriend changed my mind. For some reason, it doesn't seem to occur to a lot of us that you can penetrate a chick with anything that isn't shaped like a penis." She nudged Julie with her knee. "So far, sex with Sammi is way better than any boy I've ever had."

Julie smiled. "Well, hopefully all the sex we're getting is getting better and not getting worse. Assuming I get laid. Sometime in the next four years," she quipped.

Cassie cocked her head to the side, smiling sympathetically at her friend. "...not a lot of luck dating?"

Julie made a little face. "Well last year, freshman guys weren't really into dating, overall. Maybe this year will be better."

Cassie continued to smile sympathetically, and then winced. "...I'm sorry, I haven't actually made any guy-friends since I came to campus. I can't even hook you up with someone. We should go out sometime, though, try to meet people?"

Julie chuckled. "That wasn't me asking for a fix-up, I swear. I would like to go out and have some fun, though. I'm not really skilled at man-hunting, so..."

Cassie shrugged, grinning. "Well it so happens that I know at least two girls who are. We could have fun with that. But we could also just go out, y'know. Eventually you have to put the books down..."

Julie smirked at that. "Have you even had a chance to pick them up in the last two weeks?"

Cassie ducked her head, looking guilty. "...well... occasionally. I haven't been ducking homework, per se, but I just haven't... done much this week, or last. In my defense, though," she protested, "I only have one tough class this semester, Calculus, and I can get caught up in that pretty easy since I don't actually need to do the reading for Mythology or Brit Lit."

"Well I have to get back to that because some of us don't already know everything," Julie teased, getting up.

"Kay, have fun." Cassie lay on her bed, snuggling her face into the pillow Samantha was sleeping on the night before, but as Julie headed out the door, Cassie suddenly lifted her head, calling out after her. "Hey Jules..." She smiled slightly. "I'm glad you know."

Julie glowed as she headed out the door and closed it behind her. "Me too."

Cassie lay in the bed for a few minutes after Julie left, trying to parcel out in her brain how quickly her secret identity- so carefully maintained for three years- was so quickly beginning to unravel. Although as she'd told her friend, she was glad that Julie now knew about her, the way Julie had found out concerned her. If her closest friend on campus could recognize her face from a single grainy picture of her face, how long would it be before someone on the cheer leading team did so, or one of her professors, or (god forbid), one of Sammi's disapproving girlfriends? That wouldn't just expose her, it would thrust her relationship with the daughter of Mercy Graves into the public spotlight, and the public spotlight seemed to be the last place that Cassie's black-haired, blue-eyed girlfriend wanted their relationship to end up.

Sighing, Cassie finally sat up and thrust all those thoughts out of her mind - at least for the time being. Although she'd made light of it to Julie, Samantha's texts had reminded Cassie that she really did, actually, have homework that she needed to do, and so with some regret the blonde girl changed out of the new clothes she was wearing, got back into her yoga pants and t-shirt, tied her hair up, and set about trying to catch up on all the Calculus she'd missed the last two weeks. From about 7pm to 10 pm, in fact, she burned through more homework than she'd realized she had due, and when she finally put the book away and crawled towards her bed again, she felt like her brain might pop if she tried to balance another equation, or... whatever she was trying to do. Calculate... things.

As she pulled back the covers and slipped beneath the sheets, the blonde girl grabbed her cellphone off of the bedside table where she'd put it and checked for messages from Samantha. When she didn't have any, she sighed, pouting wistfully, and then set it aside and pulled the sheets up to her neck. But before she dropped off, Cassie felt the need to turn on the TV again, just to check and see if anyone else was talking about her confrontation with Killer Frost.

Once again, the TV turned on to WGBS, but instead of a news show, what she found was a talk news show, in which a series of predominantly white, predominantly male 'experts' were weighing in on the news of the day, presenting their own thoughts and opinions as if they themselves were the arbiters of what was right and true in the news. Although when she turned the show on the commentators were talking about something more or less unrelated - the recent press-release from the Daily Planet on behalf of the famous heroes of the Justice League regarding their decision to unilaterally intervene in the South Congolese Civil-War-cum-Genocide crisis, and to hunt down the perpetrators of mass human trafficking operation and terrorism in the process - just as she was getting ready to turn the screen off again and go to sleep, Cassie's attention was caught when the program suddenly switched to the topic of an even-more-recent press-release from the City of Metropolis' town hall. A video began playing which showed the newly-appointed MCPD Commissioner, a former Lexcorp Security Forces executive named George Stephanos, shaking the hand of Lexcorp Security's Chief of Operations, Mercy Graves.

Sitting upright in bed, Cassie scooted to the foot of her bed and turned the volume up so that she could better hear what was being said in the video. In it, the police commissioner was announcing a historic new partnership between the MCPD and the Security Forces Division of Lexcorp to better ensure the 'safety and security of Metropolis' streets.'

"In the past, when the world was quieter and the threats posed to our city and our country were not so grave, the perpetual presence of Superman was enough to keep the streets of our fair city clear of metahuman criminal activity and to prevent disruption to the normal lives of our good citizens," the commissioner was saying, while flashbulbs went off all around him, "but today the world is a very different, more dangerous place, and Superman, even the Justice League, is often kept hopping from crisis point to crisis point - sometimes, it seems almost as if the Man of Steel has abandoned us, his home, his family, in favor of people halfway around the world who have never welcomed or sheltered him as we have done."

Cassie snorted, rolling her eyes at the bombastic anti-Superman propaganda. This was nothing new to her. Luthorcorp stooges all over the world had been spewing the same sort of crap for years, and she'd mostly learned to tune it out. But then the commissioner went on, and what he said next grabbed Cassie's attention forcefully.

"After the events of yesterday morning, the super powered 'grudge match,' as WGBS reported Kat Grant put it, between two young women who clearly have no respect for the law, for the safety and property of others, or for the powers they command, and whose destructive combat cost our great city the lives of over a dozen police officers and several more innocent bystanders, I have decided to take into account the arguments presented to me by respected leaders of our community. In days past, Metropolis put its faith in its metahuman defenders, especially the Man of Steel. We knew that no matter how bad things got, how out of hand the violence, that Superman would always have our backs and step in if things went too far. But with the Man of Steel's new found interest in places and peoples far from us, and his lack of attention for his home city, we can no longer trust the metahuman community living among us to police its own. To that end, I have decided to forge a special joint task force, made up of MCPD's Metahuman Division and Lexcorp Security's Armed Response Squad, to handle the metahuman security problem in our city. No longer will our city be held hostage to whims of troublemakers with superpowers. From this moment on, the Major Crimes unit of the MCPD will turn over the handling of all major disturbances to the Metahuman Task Force. Furthermore, through my emergency authority granted to me as Police Commissioner in the case of metahuman disasters in our fair city, I am issuing the following ordinance: henceforth, the exercise of metahuman abilities against individuals or property within the city limits of Metropolis, outside of strict police supervision, shall be considered a Class I misdemeanor offense, until such time as the metahuman crisis in this city is deemed to be under control. Any such perpetrator, when identified, regardless of whether he or she identifies themselves as a so-called 'superhero,' shall be subject to arrest and detainment on Stryker's Island, to await trial."

Cassie swatted the Power button on her TV remote so hard that the remote flew off her bedside table and across the room. Throwing back her bed sheets, the blonde girl stalked out of bed, stomping around her room for a moment, gritting her teeth and fuming. How dare Lexcorp and its stooges try to blame her for Killer Frost's rampage! How dare they try to prevent her from helping people! Didn't they understand that there were just some situations that a squad of armored, deputized Lexcorp security goons weren't going to be able to handle? How dangerous their proposal was for the actual people they claimed to be protecting? She wasn't going to let them get in the way of doing her job, was she?

Hell No. Stomping across her bedroom, Cassie threw the bottom drawer of her dresser and grabbed at a pair of jeans and a red t-shirt. A few minutes later, Wonder Girl burst into the skies over the city of Metropolis, and soared out into the skies, looking for some trouble to get into.

The next morning Samantha woke up to the sound of her phone alerting her about a text message and snapped to attention, knocking the phone off the bedside table and in her sleepiness, sending it flying against the opposite wall, battery and case flying apart. She groaned and assembled the phone again, expecting a text from Cassie and pouting disappointment when it turned out to be one of her sorority would-be sisters calling her to duty. She got p, showered, dressed, and headed over to the Zeta house where she and a few other pledges were tasked with party-planning for the weekend's Zeta house party. It was stressed that the planning of a sufficiently impressive bash would be imperative to being appointed as a Zeta and that things would get more intense as the week went on. The three girls had an impromptu meeting at a coffee shop down the street where after about twenty minutes of commiserating about the life of a freshman, they delegated. They all agreed that getting the top frats to attend would be a deciding factor so in addition to each of their own individual assignments, they were all going to take a shot at convincing lead members of the big four frats on campus. If they all tried, they figured, it wouldn't matter if any one of them failed.

Since she was up at the crack of dawn, well before morning labs would even begin for most of the science classes, Samantha went straight back to her dorm afterward to do the only thing she could at that time in the morning: study. Between calculus and Psychology class she had a social luncheon with the rest of the pledges where they did a sort of speed-dating with the already-confirmed Zetas. It was difficult not to start drama inside the short allotted time they had with each sister, but Samantha felt as though she'd been training for just that kind of conflict-avoidance all her life. She learned that the pledge process was the most packed Zetas would make her social calendar, but there were all sorts of little details that would help her fit in better. Zetas wore their nails a certain way, Zetas preferred heels over wedges, and Zetas were almost unilaterally habitually single straight girls. That last point was awkward and came up more than a handful of times with different sisters in little indirect ways, but she danced around the issue each time and successfully secured a nail appointment with one of the senior girls to get Zeta nails later in the day. Right after lunch she went straight to Psychology class, which was quickly becoming her favorite. Even the homework for Psychology was a pleasure, and the reading came naturally to her and was consistently challenging and fascinating. She was starting to feel like her background in Philosophy had more numerous applications in Psychology, which on the face of things seemed pretty wrong. Freud felt a lot like Plato to her though, and modern psychology was even more welcoming. Apparently, her teacher had either been at the football game or had heard about her through word-of-mouth, because it seemed like she related every concept, no matter how distant to what she was calling "the LGBT community," while making eye contact that she thought was ambiguous.

Read more...

Cassie had spent the better part of her evening patrolling the streets of Metropolis, making her presence seen and heard across the city. On the corner of Fifth and Main she had prevented a fender bender from turning into a multi-car pile-up. Over on the South Side, near Hob's Bay, she had broken up an Intergang drug deal and hauled half a dozen of the city's toughest mob enforcers to the nearest police station using her lasso. A fire on 87th street on the West Side had gotten out of control a little while after midnight when the flames got to a local gas main and blew a hole in the street, but Cassie dove into the flames undaunted and brought out the family living inside so that the firefighters could just knock the building down and put out the blaze with anti-flammable but hazardous foaming gel. A few pedestrian muggings followed late into the night, but Cassie wasn’t done: just as the sun was coming up, a medical transport helicopter heading to Met Gen flew into a flock of pigeons and lost a rotary blade, veering wildly towards the ground, but 'Wonder Girl,' who launched herself off a nearby building and into the sky, caught the descending helicopter and (straining her superpowers to the limit) pulled the careening helicopter out of its descent and flew it back to the top of Met Gen tower.

When she touched down on the Met Gen helipad, wobbling on her feet and with her legs and arms buckling as she tried to control the helicopter's descent to the helipad surface, Cassie was surprised to be greeted by a crowd of reporters and news cameras. A dozen microphones were shoved at her as soon as she stumbled away from the grateful helicopter crew, pushing her sweat-dampened hair out of her face, and she reeled back from provocative questions about her stance on the Anti-Metahuman ordinance, first responding that no matter what an undemocratically appointed political official might have to say about things, she was still here and she was still going to help the people of Metropolis as well as she could using her abilities. When more questions followed the first ones, however, Cassie began to back away, demurring off the attention, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of spending a whole evening using her abilities taking its toll on her overextended metabolism. When the extremely pushy camera crew from WGBS pushed in on her, demanding to know why she insisted on putting the public's safety in jeopardy through the reckless and unsupervised exercise of her abilities, Cassie tripped, and only managed to avoid tumbling off the helipad and onto the roof of the building proper when a short, curvaceous woman with dark hair, wearing a high powered and professional looking skirt outfit without the blazer that would normally accompany it, dove out of the crowd and caught her by the elbow. "C'mon," the woman said, shielding the exhausted blonde girl from the crowd with her body, "let's get you out of here and get you a glass of water, maybe some carbs." Cassie nodded weakly and let the reporter lead her away from the rooftop.

On the elevator ride down from the rooftop, the brunette woman, whom Cassie identified from her press badge as a member of the Daily Planet press corp, but whose name she couldn't quite make out because of the dark hair which obscured the badge, did not pester her with any questions, which Cassie greatly appreciated. In fact, pulling a water bottle out from under her arm, the woman passed it to Cassie, and then fished around in the giant purse she was carrying over one shoulder. "I know have some granola bars in here..."

Cassie took the water bottle with a grateful smile and sipped it slowly, tugging her stringy damp hair out of her face and leaning back against the elevator door. "Thanks," she gasped, her heart rate slowly calming after her near collapse on the helipad. "For getting me out of there. I didn't expect a crowd after that... I kinda figured I'd just... lie down on the helipad and..." she shrugged, laughing weakly at herself, "y'know, nap?"

"No problem, kiddo," The dark haired woman, who looked to be in her late thirties, smiled, passing Cassie a couple of mostly-crushed granola bars and watching in case she stumbled again. "...have you been out all night?"

The blonde girl nodded, digging into the first bar with a relish. "Mmmmm... yeah. I..." she shrugged again, retrospectively a little embarrassed about her impulsive decision to go out and do the superhero thing all night just as a way to stick it to the authorities.

The older woman, however, didn't need the elaboration. "You saw the press conference."

Cassie nodded glumly. "...yeah."

The brunette grinned, leaning against the side of the elevator next to her and kicking the 'stop' button with the toe of her red, four inch stiletto heels. The elevator churned to a stop. "...and you thought the best way to prove to the Lexcorp political machine that they can't keep you from helping people was to... go out for a whole night and just do it. You know," she elbowed the blonde girl gently in the ribs, "until you pass out from overextending your abilities."

"Yeah, kinda," Cassie admitted ruefully, hiding her face behind her hair. "...pretty dumb, huh?"

"Nah, not really," The other woman shrugged. Then she winced. "Well, you know, the all night thing, maybe. When was the last time you had a really, really good meal?"

Cassie tipped her head back against the rear of the elevator and frowned as she tried to remember. She couldn't. "Uhh....lu--no, breakfast? Yesterday?"

The older woman shook her head, rolling her eyes with an audible sigh. "And what'd you eat, Wonder Girl?"

"A couple of sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits from McDonalds?" Cassie murmured, beginning to feel really, really dumb.

"And let me guess, that was your first time doing the superhero thing for more than just a couple of hours, right? Cause you're... eighteen now, and no one can tell you when to go to bed, or take a break, and you're out to prove to everyone that you're tough enough to be taken seriously?" The brunette grinned as she ribbed the blonde girl, but rather than waiting for Cassie to admit to what she'd just accused her off, instead, she laughed it off."You super-types," the other woman laughed, slipping an arm around the blonde girl's waist as she started the elevator up again and let it coast the remaining three floors down to the ground level. "You all think that because your powers come from magic, or science, or the sun, or whatever, and you don't really get hungry, that you don't need to eat. But you have no idea how many calories you just burned last night. Dozens - hundreds of thousands, maybe. You gotta eat, girl. You gotta eat like a horse. Come with me, I'm gonna take you out for breakfast, and then I'm gonna see you home…"

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Cassie having finished both of the granola bars and drunk the whole bottle of water, slowly started to recover a bit of her energy. Groaning as she stretched out her tired body as much the confined space of the car would let her, she grinned over at her surprise savior. "Thanks again for getting me out of there. I... I guess maybe you're right," the blonde girl tucked some hair behind one of her ears bashfully, and sighed. "I've never really pushed myself that long before. I had no idea how wiped I could get."

The brunette glanced over at the young superheroine and grinned. "Don't worry about it, kiddo. I've been tending to the personal needs of forgetfully self-sacrificing 'superheroes' for the better part of a decade. It's old-hat for me now." Sticking her hand across the divider, she took Cassie's and shook it once, assertively. "Lois Lane, Daily Planet." 

Cassie gaped, shaking the hand reflexively for a moment, and then blinked. "...Wait LOIS LANE? The super reporter?"

Lois laughed, slipping on a pair of dark shades as she drove them through the streets of Metropolis. "The one and only. Hey, kiddo, how do you feel about a big breakfast of pancakes?"

Cassie grinned, cocking her head to the side and nodding enthusiastically. "Uh... yeah. Yes, yes please!"

For the next two hours or so, Cassie ate breakfast with Lois Lane in a small, dark, independently owned and operated flat-jack place that the reporter drove them to several blocks off of the main highways and buried among the windy twists and turns of Hob's Bay. The place was called Bibbo's House of Jacks, and was attached to a much larger establishment next door named Ace of Clubs, a bar and steakhouse that was closed in the mornings but open all evening. Bibbo, who appeared to be a personal friend of the reporter, served both Lois and Cassie two heaping stacks of golden-brown pancakes, with a generous slathering of butter and syrup, a heaping pile of slightly-crispy sausages, and a large jug of O.J. Lois, who had provided Cassie with a quick change of clothing as soon as they pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant (a baggy Metropolis Bulldogs sweatshirt over a pair of matching sweatpants) introduced the blonde girl to Bibbo not as 'Wonder Girl,' as she'd expected, but as a friend, and Bibbo had treated her as such, calling her 'Blondie,' showing her a small portion of his Superman collectibles and memorabilia, some of which he proudly asserted had been given to him directly by the Man of Steel himself - 'Mah Fav'rite!' or the pretty, feisty young reporter sitting across from Cassie at the table.

For most of their breakfast, Cassie and Lois just chitchatted - about the weather, about the Bulldogs - Lois, it turned out, was a big fan of her alma mater's football team, about the stories Lois was working on, about how she'd met Bibbo - "Oh, Superman introduced us! It's actually a long, really funny story..." The entire time they were eating, however, they got nowhere near the subject of Cassie's secret identity, or her stance on the anti-metahuman ordinance, or any of the aspects that Cassie had figured the reporter would try to pursue now that she had the blonde girl cornered in a restaurant buried under a mountain of food. In fact, after two hours had gone by, Cassie was starting to find the whole experience very surreal- fun, but completely not what she'd expected- so when Lois took a break from telling one of her stories about Superman and Bibbo's adventures together battling crime in the Metropolis Back Bay, Cassie took a deep breath, pushed her plate away- she'd already eaten something on the order of a dozen pancakes and a small mountain of sausages- and leaned across the table, folding her arms under her and cocking her head to the side, looking at the reporter with curiosity.

"Alright, Lois, you've rescued me from the press, from my own impending metabolic coma, and you've told me more about Metropolis and the Back Bay than I ever thought I could possibly know, and you've introduced me to... to..." she couldn't think of an adjective that properly described Bibbo, so she just settled on ''Bibbo,' and he's shown me a mountain of Superman collectibles... and it's..." she grinned, "it's been a blast, actually, but honestly... I was expecting you to grill me about... y'know, who I am, and what I'm doing in Metropolis, and how I feel about the anti-metahuman ordinance. So... like, really, what gives?"

Lois put down her glass of orange juice and smiled, carving herself another piece of sausage and sticking it in her mouth. "Cassie," she said, quietly, as if she'd known the younger girl's identity the whole time, "relax. If I were chasing a story, you'd know it by now. I'm a dog with a bone." She washed down the sausage with another sip of orange juice and then pushed her own plate away. "Mmmm... Bibbo makes the best-tasting, least healthy breakfast food in Metropolis." She grinned. "Look, kiddo, I knew who you were before I came to Met Gen this morning. In fact, I knew who you were a day ago."

Cassie blinked, shaking her head in disbelief. "...what... how... how does everyone know who I am already? I wore a wig for three years and no one knew, and I go without it for a week, and suddenly everyone knows."

"Well, the cheerleading isn't gonna help," Lois explained, her smile fading. "Seriously, after I saw you at that game, matching the face of the pretty blonde cheerleader who made out with a beautiful black-haired girl over the railing of the stands with the blonde teen superhero who showed up in Metropolis the same week as classes began at Met U was... really, just... too easy." She sighed. "And hey, I may be the Daily Planet's top reporter, and I was at that game to see you kiss that girl- are you dating her, by the way? No, wait, sorry- journalism mode off- but you can bet that other people are gonna start catching on sooner rather than later. There are just too many pictures of cheerleaders and superheroes for someone to not put cheerleader-you and superhero-you together."

Cassie frowned, her mood taking a sharp dive as the obvious truth of what Lois was saying settled in. "...well, what do I do? I can't put the wig back on."

"Nooooo..." Lois conceded, ruefully, and then she winced. "But you... could quit cheerleading. I know that sounds harsh, but... you're a pretty girl. People pay attention to your face, a lot. It's not fair, but you need to do something to separate how you look as Wonder Girl from how you look as Cassie Sandsmark, cheerleader and college coed, and you need to do it STAT, or you can kiss your secret identity, and your anonymity good-bye."

That pretty much brought an end to the conversation. After apologizing for bringing down the mood, Lois paid Bibbo (and left an enormous tip), and then drove Cassie back to campus. When her red sedan pulled up outside of Cassie's residence hall, the brunette reported leaned over and gave the blonde girl a friendly hug, and a pat on the back. "Look kiddo, try not to let the political morons who make policy get to you. Metropolis loves her superheroes, and for better or worse now, you're one of them. Take care of the people, and they'll take care of you. And I got'chure back, mmkay? If you need anything, just give me a call, okay?" She passed the blonde girl a business card, and then sat back with a smile. "Now promise me you're going to go get some sleep, alright? Before you really do collapse. Superman's out of town for a while- Metropolis needs you to be out there, visible and doing good while he's away, okay? And you can't do that if you pass out in the middle of a save, so... SLEEP!" Shooing the blonde girl out of the car with a flick of her fingers, the reporter waved a farewell at her as Cassie retrieved a duffle bag (borrowed from Lois) containing her costume from the trunk and then stumbled sleepily up the stairs and towards her bedroom, just as the campus clock began to chime with the noon-hour.

Reaching her bedroom, Cassie fought off a yawn and tossed the borrowed bag into the corner of her dorm room, then dropped bottom-first onto the bed and reached for her cellphone. Pulling up a browser window, Cassie reflexively checked for news updates, and then groaned and tossed the phone away when she saw that the headline story on the WGBS website's news feed was "Wonder Girl Collapses on top of the Met Gen helipad! Is Metropolis really safe in her hands?"

"Go to helllllllllll," the blonde girl groaned, planting herself face first in Samantha's pillow on her bed. A few minutes later she was out like a light.

It was around that time that Samantha was getting out of Psychology class thinking wearily about the assignment, her evening plans, and the to-do list that wouldn't stop growing. She idly decided to check the news alert she'd set up for Wonder Girl and read as she walked across campus, frowning as the headlines got steadily worse. She turned sharply and headed straight for Cassie's dorm in a limping run, jumping onto the fire escape and climbing up to her window, giving a little sigh of relief when she saw her girlfriend passed out on the bed. She rapped on the window.

Snoring softly on the bed, Cassie's eyes popped open blearily when she heard tapping on her window. Turning her face this way and that, she frowned at the window and then waved at it, not understanding who might possibly be outside but saying the least insensible thing she could think at that moment. "Morning." The window was unlocked.

Samantha pushed the window open and crawled inside, kicking off her shoes and crawling onto the bed next to her. "You need to lock your window, missy. Are you okay? Do you have a super concussion?"

"Mmmm...." Cassie's eyes flew open again at the sound of Samantha's voice, and she smiled, her eyes focusing on the window and the pretty girl crawling inside through it. "Hey, baby...." She smiled sleepily over at Samantha and her sleepy eyes glowed as she felt the bed shift under Samantha's weight. "Nah, M'okay. Just tired. I kinda wore myself out. But then a nice lady took me out for pancakes and brought me home. I was really tired, but I really just wanted to see you and now..." she sighed, her eyes fluttering closed again "...everything's good."

Samantha chuckled and checked her phone, sighing a little as she set an alarm for a couple hours from then. She had to get things accomplished with her afternoon but all she suddenly wanted to do was curl up against Cassie's warm back. She set her phone on the bedside table and curled up with her, spooning the taller girl's back and setting her face in her hair.

Cassie smiled as she felt Samantha wrap her smaller body around her from behind and snuggled back against her, pulling one of Sammi's hands around her waist and interlacing their fingers together as she closed her eyes again and drifted off to sleep.

Sam was a natural big spoon, curling in around her and setting her face against the back of Cassie's neck and she closed her eyes and drifted swiftly to sleep. She slept like that for two hours before waking to the very soft jingle of her cell phone alarm. It didn't take much to wake Samantha up. She slid across the bed and tapped her cell phone, checking the time and sighing audibly. She glanced over at Cassie's sleeping form and gave a little smirk, getting up off the bed.

Cassie groaned a few seconds after Samantha pulled away, patting the mattress behind her and opening one eye as she rolled over and blinked sleepily at Samantha. "...mmmwhere you goin'?"

Samantha smiled and fussed with her hair in the mirror over Cassie's dresser. "To get my nails done with one of the Zetas, then spin through some very specific parties to try and convince specific people to come to the Zeta house party this weekend, and then write a really brilliant psych paper with what's left of my brain."

"Oh," Cassie's mouth twitched as her other eye came open slowly. "That sounds like fun." She winced, not having meant for that to come out as disappointed as it sounded when she heard it aloud. "...do you need a..." she shook her head, "no, probably not, huh? Hmmm." Sitting up slowly, the blonde girl combed her fingers slowly through her hair and put on a smile. "Well, I hope it winds up being more fun than it sounds."

Samantha smiled and dropped onto the bed next to her, kissing her cheek and letting one of her hands slide down her back. "You're gonna come to the party, Saturday, right? It's gonna be amazing."

"Saturday, huh?" Cassie cocked her head to the side and raised a hopeful eyebrow while she pulled a meager smile. "...you sure your new 'sisters' are gonna wanna see me there? Won't I mess the mojo up?"

Sam smirked and tipped her head back. "Hey, people apply to be my friend, not vice-versa. If they wanna be my people they are gonna like the things I like. And I like you."

Cassie's smile grew slightly, and she nodded. "Would I love to be your date to the fancy party you're throwing? Hell yes. ...Thanks for asking." Her smiled slipped slightly, though, as she closed one eye and cocked her head to the side. "...So does that mean I'm not gonna see you until Saturday, cause I was just starting to get used to pillow talking ourselves to sleep." She blushed and shrugged.

Sam laughed. "I'm gonna be really busy making this party happen inside of two days, but I am free for dinner Friday night if you can clear your schedule."

"Uh, yeah, okay, sure-" Cassie turned around and pushed her cellphone off of the edge of her bed. "Oh look, schedule cleared. Hmmm."

Samantha grinned and kissed her, sliding across the bed to Cassie's side and sliding an arm around her shoulders. "That was pretty sexy."

Cassie grinned and laughed, kissing her back and putting both of her hands on her on Sammi's waist, pulling her close. "What, knowing what I want, or going for it?"

Samantha set her forehead against hers. "I love when you go for it. In every possible meaning of the phrase." She kissed her nose. "What did you do last night?"

Cassie pressed her forehead against Samantha's happily, her smile burgeoning out of control and her eyelids fluttering as she blushed, and let out in a happy-shaky breath. "...I love it when you do that," she whispered, shivering excitedly. She took a another breath, smiling happily and enjoying the closeness of their faces for a moment before she answered. When she did her smile dropped a tick. "Did you catch the news last night?"

"I read the news blast this morning when I was catching up. You almost fell off a building?" Sam raised an eyebrow, not moving from where she was.

"Oh, well, that was the post-script," Cassie muttered, lifting her eyes to Samantha's again. "...Lexcorp, and WGBS, their news outlet, is, ummmm, blaming me for the whole 'Killer Frost' debacle."

Sam frowned, curling her lip and jerking her head back an inch. "What? How could they possibly- you kicked ass in that fight. Do they know you saved Luthor's life?"

Cassie sighed, pulling her head back as well and wincing. "...it seems someone is telling the news people at WGBS some stories. Or the WGBS people are just... full of bullshit, I'm not sure what's worse." She shook her head. "According to them, my 'super powered grudge match' cost the city over a million dollars in public property damages and the lives of over two dozen people." She sighed. "They called me an out-of-control teenage menace, and they compared me to... to fricken Miley Cyrus and Lindsey Lohan." Remembering some of the nasty stuff the reporters said got the blonde girl all heated again and she blew out a breath, tugging on some of her own hair. "...oh, but they were full of praises for you."

Samantha frowned and pouted. "You can't really go in for an interview and set them straight, can you? How do we manage that?" She blinked a few times and cocked her head at the last sentence. "Me? What about me?"

"They used you as foil for me," Cassie grimaced, sitting back on the bed and growling. "The anonymous citizen-hero who ran around and saved everyone from my out-of-control rampage." She rolled her eyes. "I mean, don't get me wrong," she said, her eyes widening and fixing on Sammi's face as she reassured her, "I love that you were there, and that you saved all those people, and that you took care of that so that I could beat Frost, but what. the. fuck.? What happened to the police officer who came up and talked to me after the fight? Didn't she tell anyone what happened? And what about the rest of the cops, and all the bystanders? Why the hell doesn't anyone have my back on this?"

Samantha frowned, trying to work it out, but no matter which way she looked at it, it seemed like a giant publicity machine had targeted to smear her girlfriend. She couldn't figure out why though. "She was definitely on your side, and she got the whole story. She either got shut up or completely ignored so they could smear you, but why?"

Cassie shrugged, her mouth set in an angry line. "Oh, and it gets worse. Late last night..." she winced, no sure how to break this gently to her girlfriend, "...your mother was on television."

Sam bit the corner of her lip, knowing full well how her mom, how her mom and the company, felt about superhero intervention. "...she was chiming in?"

"Actually..." Cassie continued to wince, choosing her words slowly and with care. "...not ... so... much." She sighed. "She was in a press conference at Town Hall, with the new Police Commissioner, who... used to work for her at Lexcorp Security. They were announcing a new partnership between the MMCPD and the Lexcorp Armored Security Tactical Forces, designed to target rogue metahuman activity - like mine - and get it off the streets. They like... issued a blanket ban on metahuman vigilantism in Metropolis."

She smiled for the first time since the subject had come up, eyeing Cassie fondly. "So my girlfriend decided to spend all night flagrantly violating that ban."

Cassie cocked her head to the side, staring at Samantha with surprise. "Well, actually, yeah. ...That's a good thing?" She smiled hesitantly.

Samantha chuckled and kissed her. "It's kind of adorable. I would like it if it didn't end in you nearly toppling off buildings, though."

The blonde girl kissed her back, smiling more broadly. "Well, I may have overdone it a little. I've never gone that long without taking a break or eating enough to recharge my batteries. Fortunately, a very lovely woman saved me from face-planting myself on the top of the Met Gen tower and then took me out for breakfast." She grinned, waiting for her girlfriend to tease out the details. "C'mon, ask me who it was."

She wrinkled her nose and lifted her chin a little. "How lovely was this lady who took my swooning girlfriend out for breakfast?"

Cassie's batted her eyelashes a bit, playing coy. "Extremely. NOT as lovely as this girl I'm seeing, but... well, if there was a league for petite, sexy brunette women with killer curves, well..." she winked. "Oh, and I hear she has a thing for superheroes...”

She arched a brow at Cassie and gave her a little shove. "Alright, who is this woman I must kill to establish my rightful place?"

Cassie giggled, leaning forward and brushing her lips against Samantha's soft lips. "Mmmm... I have eyes for no one but you. "Sides, she's just a bit old for me." She rolled her eyes. "You're not gonna ask, are you?"

Samantha smirked and widened her eyes dramatically at her and nudged her with her elbow. "I did ask. Who rescued you?"

Cassie blinked, rewinding the conversation in her head for a moment before she blushed, smiling sheepishly. "...oh yeah, you did. Um, Lois Lane."

Sam grinned and raised her eyebrows. "Lois Lane?? The Daily Planet's Lois Lane?"

The blonde girl nodded excitedly. "Yep! The one and only! She saved me from the reporters who showed up at Met Gen to grill me about the anti-metahuman law, then took me to some flapjack house in Hob's Bay run by this friend of hers - well, a mutual friend of hers and Superman's. His name was Bibbo, and he had this giant wall full of Superman collectibles, and...." She paused her rambling and then winced, squeezing an eye shut again. "Oh, and uh, she knows. About me. And us. But not who you are. At least I don't think so."

Her enjoyment of the first of Cassie's story was quickly diminished by the realization of the second half. "How could she know? Does she know on the record, or off of it? If she figured it out without even knowing you, doesn't that put your identity in big-time jeopardy?"

"Uh, yeah, actually, she..." Cassie frowned and rubbed her face, sitting back against the bed. "She had some advice for me on that score." Suddenly, it occurred to Cassie that this conversation was lasting much longer than her girlfriend probably had time for, and she glanced around herself looking for any active digital surface with a clock on it. "...shit! Am I making you late? I don't want to make you late."

Sam shrugged a little, shoving her phone in her purse. "If you need to talk this through I don't have anywhere I need to be that takes precedence over your whole... life."

Cassie smiled, her eyes sparkling with affection. The gesture tugged at her heart strings. She reached out with both hands and grabbed at Samantha's, pulling her in for a snuggle. "You're pretty wonderful, you know." she told the other girl as she wrapped her arms around Sammi's waist and back, setting her chin on the top of her girlfriend's head. "I'll try to make this quick:" she took a deep breath and then dove in. "Lois says she saw us at the football game and that when blurry pictures of my face during the fight with Frost started to pop up she was able to recognize me from them. Oh, and Julie did that too. She knows, too..." she sighed somewhat heavily. "...I'm really failing on this secret identity thing lately. Anyway, Julie came in and asked me a bunch of questions about me, and us, and she knows that you were the anonymous black-haired, blue-eyed hero who helped people out of the ice during the Frost thing, but I don't think Lois knows that - at least not yet - but she (Lois) suggested that I should maybe think about quitting the squad before people start putting pictures of cheerleader me and superhero me side by side, while Donna's just thrilled that I told someone, anyone about my secret identity (especially the person I happen to be dating)... and this whole thing is just sort of starting to fall apart, and I'm kinda freaking out about the anti-metahuman ordinance and what people might do if they figure out that I'm Wonder Girl and that Wonder Girl goes to Met U, will they let me stay here, and what if they find out we're dating, will you get in trouble with your, your friends, and your mom, and ...will they figure out you have powers? And will that be my fault? and I..." she pulled her head back and frowned, tilting her face down so that she could find Samantha's eyes. "...I-I don't wanna lose you," she said in a tiny, scared little voice, "I just found you."

Samantha's head swam a little in the sea of thoughts that had poured out of Cassie all at once, trying to figure out what to address first. "If your identity goes public, you go from kind of operating outside the law to breaking the law, which would- not- end well. I mean, right now they don't really know any place to send the summons- which might explain why they are a little nervous? This would be a terrible time for that in particular to fall apart..." she thought out loud, trying to spool out her thoughts on the subject. "Maybe I've been a little cavalier about my abilities since we met, maybe it'd be better if I scaled back on using them." Cassie made her feel like it was so safe and right and normal to employ her powers, but this was all just a reminder how perilous it would be for her to be exposed.

Cassie nodded slowly, agreeing reluctantly with the bulk of what Samantha was saying, except that... "...I can't scale back," she said, quietly. "Something else I heard on the news last night: the Justice League went in to Africa to stop the genocides there. They could be gone for weeks. There's no one here to protect Metropolis."

Samantha frowned a little, feeling like her instinct to hide and self-protect was on the selfish side. "Would it be weird to- I don't know- start wearing a mask or something? I mean, wouldn't the public recognize that as sort of a reaction or protest to the whole anti-vigilante rhetoric?"

The blonde girl was quiet for a moment, lowering her head and pressing her cheek against the side of Samantha's face. She thought about the implications of a mask: what it would draw attention to, what it would change about her interactions with people. "...I don't feel like a mask is the way to go," she said, softly. "I feel like that'll just draw attention to what I'm trying to hide: my face. But..." she sighed again. "...maybe I should quit the squad."

She made a little face, unthinkingly running her fingers through Cassie's silky blonde hair. "But you love the squad, and your friends are all on it..."

"Julie's on it," Cassie corrected her quietly. "But she lives across the hall from me, and she's too excited about being friends with a superhero to not stay friends with me after I... if I quit. Besides," she lowered her face and nuzzled the side of Samantha's temple. "I love this more.”

She smiled softly and slipped an arm around Cassie's waist. "You don't have to choose, you know. Unless they find out and lock me up in one of those meta prisons that no one ever comes back from. I have no say in that."

"I dunno," Cassie whispered against the side of Samantha's head. "Maybe I do have to. Choose, I mean. I mean, not actually choose, cause if I do, the choice is made. But..." She let the thought taper off and then shook her head. "Aggghhhhh. Enough. Enough enough enough. You have party planning to get to." She kissed Samantha's cheek and then opened her arms.

Samantha kissed her softly and gave a little smile as she got off the bed. "You'll figure it out. And in the unlikely event it gets totally screwed up we'll deal." She slung her purse over her shoulder and slipped her shoes back on, heading for the door.

"I hope you're right," Cassie smiled as Samantha headed for the door. "You have fun tonight, babe," she sighed as she slipped off of the bed and began pulling her borrowed sweats off, reaching for the bottom drawer of her dresser. "I gotta work."

"Be careful. Hydrate!" she admonished, before slipping out the door and racing to the nail salon to try and make her appointment.

**Author's Note:**

> Super-clone Science stuff: Given the various kinds of tinkering and multi-trial formulae that Lexcorp and Cadmus scientists no-doubt engaged in while trying to produce a viable Super-clone from their small sample of Kryptonian DNA we figure there's no reason that SuperBOY couldn't have been SuperGIRL (keeping in mind that gender isn't automatically tied to genitalia or chromosomes.) A lot of what follows is just speculation about how things might have gone had the Superclone been assigned biologically female at birth. It's also a fantastic excuse to write an awesome ship as femslash. And clones!


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